True Hope
by LiveLaughLovex
Summary: False hope is one of the most destructive forces in the world. It allows for possibilities that will always be taken away. But true hope, unfaltering hope, it was something that everyone deserved to know about. Even if they were Cristina Yang. Post Season Seven Finale AU in which Cristina fights for her marriage and her baby.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: I've been out of this fandom for a while, and I apologize. It was very difficult to watch after recent events on the show, and it took me a while to develop my love of seasons of Grey's Anatomy that have passed again. But I was watching Owen and Cristina interactions in seasons five and seven, and I had to write something about that. Sorry if it's not what you were expecting.**

 **I would also like to add that, as someone who has never been pregnant, I have no right to judge anyone who has gotten an abortion. As I've said before, I know none of your stories. But I am pro-life, which will likely show up in this story. That is my warning. Please do not leave unkind comments; you are free to have your opinion, but I am also free to have mine.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Grey's Anatomy.**

There is a reason that doctors are so captivated by the idea of reality, but are equally dismissal of anything that seems even the least bit unrealistic. It is because the idea of false hope, of something that seems possible at first but is then ripped away when it is needed most, is so terrifying, so _heart-wrenching_ , that they must turn away, because they are very aware that such home will ultimately lead to their final destruction.

Cristina Yang was no different than the rest. Her husband was the hopeful one; she was a realist, through and through. It was one of the things that made her a damn good surgeon. It was also something that made her feel mediocre in every other aspect of her life.

She was pregnant. Approximately nine weeks pregnant, according to her gynecologist. Her baby-if that wasn't the most terrifying notion in the world, she had a _baby_ -had fingers, and toes, and developing facial features.

If she kept this baby, if she felt it grow within her, she wondered what its life would hold. If she and Owen had any say in it, there was no possible way that the child would grow up to become anything other than a surgeon. Owen would say that the baby could be anything he or she wished when he or she grew up; after all, he _was_ Owen. But with their gene pool, they were more liking to end up with a surgeon than they were with an engineer, and she took no issue with that.

Her husband was pissed at her, and she now knew that he had a right to be. She had made a decision about not only her life, but about their lives together, on a whim, and she hadn't even bothered to consult him until she realized he deserved to know. She now realized how unbelievably cruel that was. She was blunt and honest with her patients because she hated the idea of giving them false hope, but she had done the same thing to her husband. She had allowed him to believe, if only for a millisecond, that he was going to become a father. And then, without warning or sensitivity, she had ripped that way from him. He _should_ be pissed at her. Hell, she was pissed at herself.

She hadn't been able to walk into the abortion clinic; she had known in the back of her mind that she never would be able to. Whether or not she was ready to be a mother, Owen was ready to be a father, and now he was. Even if the baby didn't have hair, and was still developing its facial features, he had a son or a daughter, and she had been prepared to take that away from him. It didn't matter that she hadn't been able to walk into the abortion clinic; the fact that she had been able to walk to it, to stand in front of the doors and seriously consider ending the life of a child, of their child, that wasn't something she was sure Owen could ever get over.

Her husband was, on all accounts, an honorable man. He had been willing to die in Iraq to save the lives of men and women who were just as selfless. When he had come home, he had done it begrudgingly; it still gave her chills when she thought about how ready and willing he had been to leave and return to the place that had caused his fears and his terrors. Her husband was the kind of man that didn't really exist in the world anymore, and she was aware of that.

She had believed that he was aware of what kind of woman that she was when he had married her. Yes, they had been traumatized when they said I do, but if trauma was enough to stop people from marrying, there would be very few weddings left to attend. Fear was part of life, whether people wanted to accept it or not. She had learned, with Owen's help, that the whole purpose of life, the reason that they were placed on the earth, was to overcome fear and allow love to make them stronger.

That was the reason that Owen was so pissed at her, and she knew that deep down. She had allowed her fear of motherhood to take away from the joy that she felt deep within. She had been willing to kill her baby-her beautiful, innocent, brand-new baby- because she was so fearful of what had happened the first time she had been pregnant. And she knew, she knew that Owen and Burke were not the same people. As selfless as Burke had always wanted to make himself out to be, he had been selfish in the moment that it truly mattered. But Owen was a good man. After all, she had married him. He hadn't flinched at the sight of the red gown she wore, and he didn't demand that she wear her rings every moment of every day. He had simply loved her enough to overcome all of their issues.

She knew that she loved him enough to do that now, but she didn't know if he would be willing to listen. But she had to try. She knew she had to try. Owen had fought for them constantly since the day they had met, even if he was required to fight against her, or to fight against himself. Now, it was her turn to fight. And she knew exactly how to do so.

"Dr. Yang?" the receptionist at the gynecologist's office said, flashing her a soothing smile in her direction. "Dr. Fields will see you now."

Dr. Lucy Fields may not be her favorite person, but she was one of the best gynecologists in the country. It wasn't like she could fly in Dr. Addison Montgomery. Well, she could, but that would be a difficult conversation to have with Owen. And, come to think of it, with Derek.

"Thank you," she replied to the receptionist, taking a seat in the waiting room and flipping through one of the many parenting magazines that had been placed on the table for patients. She scoffed at some of the 'helpful' tips in the magazine-at least she knew which ones were idiotic, so her baby wouldn't die due to neglect-and then glanced around the empty room.

"Cristina?" the nurse called, and she stood slowly, inhaling shallowly and exhaling deeply before following the woman back into the exam room. Dr. Fields was with another patient, if the laughter she could hear next door was any indication, and so Cristina allowed the nurse to take her temperature, pulse, and blood pressure. When the initial exam was complete, Cristina laid back against the table, drawing in a deep breath as she waited for Dr. Fields.

"Dr. Yang," the blonde woman greeted as she walked into the room. "You've decided against termination?"

"Yes," Cristina said definitively.

"Okay, then," the doctor said, turning on the ultrasound machine and placing it against Cristina's midsection. "That," Dr. Fields said, her eyes full of a joy that Cristina rarely found in her own line of work, "is your baby."

Cristina stared at the black-and-white image in wonder, her eyes filling with tears as she began to wonder how on earth she had thought even for one moment that she could terminate her pregnancy. As she stared at the tiniest heartbeat she had ever seen, she fell in love with the child inside of her, and she realized that the largest amount of fear she could have felt in that moment would still be unable to trump the joy.

And, in that moment, she knew that her husband was right. Maybe he always had been.

It was much later in the evening when Cristina finally managed to pull herself away from a fascinating case that Teddy was presiding over. She walked into the firehouse at nine at night, very aware that the reception she was sure to receive from her husband would be an icy one. After all, he had thrown her out of their home. Even if she knew now that he had every right to, it still hurt that he was willing to do that.

She stared at the ultrasound in her hand before she walked up the stairs to their bedroom, and she smiled once again at the image before her. She had stared at it so many times in the past few hours; Teddy had had a squealing fit when she caught sight of it, which was slightly worrisome for Cristina. After all, chances were that Teddy would end up being one of her unborn child's godparents. The poor kid would end up with at least three. Then again, Meredith had found her baby book, and she had four, so it wasn't that much of a concern.

She finally walked up the stairs, sighing internally when she heard her husband in the kitchen. This would not be a fun conversation, but it would be a conversation that they had always needed to have. Babies, Burke, why she related babies and Burke-they were all things that, despite their firm position in her past, her husband needed to know about. And now, much later than she should have, she would be telling him.

Owen was cooking something that looked and smelled delicious, but Cristina knew that she should keep her distance from it. As of yet, she had found nothing other than saltines and graham crackers that the tiny human inside her would allow her to keep down. She was not taking a chance on those odds when she was supposed to be having an important conversation with her husband.

"Owen," she said, breathing in deeply when his eyes shot towards hers.

"You're at Meredith's," Owen said, his voice full of barely-hidden anger. "You're supposed to be at Meredith's."

"Meredith's already seen her future godchild. I figured that her future godchild's father should see his future child."

"What?" Owen asked, but there was much less anger in the single word than there had been in his previous sentence.

"I'm approximately nine weeks pregnant, not that I completely trust Fields with my health, or with the baby's," Cristina said, taking a careful seat on the barstool. "But I can't fly Addison out here, so we'll go with it."

"Cristina," Owen began.

"I was insensitive. And I know I was insensitive, because I've never come out and said that to anyone. But I was unfair and I know that. I was scared. I didn't want to hurt you; I was scared."

"Why? Why were you scared? Hell, Cristina, why didn't you talk to me about why you were scared?"

"It's one of our untouched topics," Cristina said.

"So it's about Burke."

"Yes," Cristina said, breathing in deeply. "It's about Burke."

And with that, they began a conversation they should have had long before. Only this time, they both knew what every word meant.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: Thank you so much for the reviews, follows, and favorites! I was a bit nervous about posting this, so I cannot thank you enough for your reception of it.**

 **REVIEW REPLIES**

 **Guest: I'm glad you liked it, and I hope this meets your expectations.**

 **Annamaria: Köszönöm. Örülök, hogy tetszik azt. (Thank you, I'm glad you like it… If my Google Translate knew what it was doing. Sorry if that was confusing…)**

 **Coloredwords: I'm experiencing the same thing with Owen and Amelia. I miss Cristina so much, and the fact that Owen and Amelia started up so soon after her departure irks me. And thank you for your comment about my opinion. Also, Owen's reaction to the ultrasound was one of the scenes I dreaded writing, because he is the kind of man who is strong but also wears his heart on his sleeve, so I hope I captured that. I like it; hopefully everyone else will, as well.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own, nor am I in any way affiliated with, the production or distribution of Grey's Anatomy. Those rights belong to ABC, Shonda Rhimes, and anyone else involved in the show's production.**

Medical professionals are, as a whole, known to be stoic. When you're dealing with life and death, when you are the only remaining difference between the two, you have to be. Emotions are a distraction when you have your hands over someone's beating heart and you are trying to force as much blood as possible to remain in their bodies. In moments like that, emotions are a hindrance, and they should be cast away. The only problem with that is that some doctors-not many, but some-have no idea in which moments emotions will be a hindrance and in which they'll be salvation, and so they don't allow themselves to feel much in the world around them.

Cristina had always been like that. It wasn't something that she was ashamed of; her father had died in her arms. She had felt his heart stop beating. The way she saw it, that moment _was_ her defining moment. It _had_ led up to every decision she had made in her life, and every decision that she had yet to make. So if that moment was the reason that she tried not to feel the horrible things that happened in the world around her, then so be it.

Until she had met Owen Hunt, that had been her philosophy in life. She had Izzie, Alex, Meredith, and George. She allowed herself to feel things with them, but she turned off her emotions elsewhere. Maybe that was the reason that she wouldn't have been able to marry Burke, even if he hadn't left. Maybe that was the reason that she hadn't considered adoption during her first pregnancy for even a fourth of the time that she had contemplated abortion. It hadn't bothered her for such a long time that she stopped noticing it.

And then Major Owen Hunt showed up, and he pulled out her icicle-without her permission- and he made her feel things. He made her feel things that were awful and amazing and heartbreaking and hopeful. Within her first month of knowing Owen, she felt everything she had kept hidden away in the months that she was involved with Burke.

And that terrified her.

So maybe that was the reason that she had been willing to sign away her marriage less than a month after it occurred, and maybe that was the reason that she had been so willing to get an abortion. She was trying to become the person she had been with Burke, the person that felt nothing in the moments that she was most meant to feel something.

And then Owen came along and made her feel things that she couldn't hide away.

The bastard.

Cristina was pulled from her thoughts as Owen took a seat next to her on the sofa, handing her a mug of what looked like green tea. "I know that you don't like it, but Meredith said you had morning sickness, and that was one of the suggestions for it," he said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand.

"Thank you," she said softly, taking a sip of the tea. Though she winced at its bitterness, she also felt it immediately soothing her stomach, and so she took another sip, her eyes focusing on her husband. He looked so young and vulnerable in front of her, and she hated herself for causing that expression to take over his face. "Hey," she said softly, reaching for her purse, "before we start talking, would you like to see your son or daughter?"

"Yes," Owen said immediately, and she couldn't stop the grin that curved her lips upward as he reached for the black-and-white ultrasound image that she held out. "Do you know if it's a boy or a girl?"

"Not for a while," Cristina said with a smile, her eyes on the ultrasound image.

"That's," Owen blinked away tears and cleared his throat before speaking again, his eyes still focused on the tiny creature the ultrasound had captured, "that's his head."

"Yeah," Cristina said, blinking away her own tears as she saw the joy on her husband's face. "He doesn't have hair yet, but I'm sure it'll be red."

Owen laughed at that, but his eyes never left the image. "Fingers, toes?" he questioned.

She gestured to the ultrasound, smiling once again as her husband's face lit up with a childlike wonder. She wondered if he had done this the day that she had told him she was pregnant. He probably had; he was, after all, Owen. She had just been too caught up in her own issues to notice it. She hoped that he would be able to forgive her for that.

"When's the next ultrasound?" he asked, his eyes focusing on hers for the first time in several minutes.

"In three weeks," Cristina said, clearing her throat. "And at the one after that, we can find out what we are having. I don't know if I want to, though," she added, causing his eyes to shoot towards hers once again after he shifted his focus to the image once again.

"Why?" he asked, his eyes full of pain as he waited for her response. She realized that he was waiting for her to take everything away again, and she knew that even if he had already forgiven her for what she had been willing to do, she wouldn't forgive herself for a good long while. She had made up her mind long ago that she would hate anyone who caused Owen to look as though he had lost everyone that mattered, and she was the reason that that look was on his face.

She smiled at him, reaching for the ultrasound and chuckling slightly as he reluctantly released his hold on it. "I don't know. I think I might be developing a love for surprises," she said softly, staring at the black-and-white image of her baby and tracing his tiny features with her finger.

It was later, much later, when they finally settled onto the couch to have the conversation they should have had years before. She had helped Owen make pasta-well, she had helped Owen make pasta until he had kicked her out of the kitchen by telling her she had become 'a danger to the food and to her own health, because food poisoning is not good for any of us'- and then she had eaten a lot of pasta. She blamed it on the hormones, and Owen's face had lit up again.

Now, though, they were both serious once again. The dishes had been washed and dried, and the food had long since been put away. Owen had turned off the phone and the television, even resorting to calling the hospital to ensure that neither of them would be paged for anything other than an 'actual emergency, not something that anyone other than the Chief qualifies as an emergency' for the next twenty-four hours. Now there were no distractions, nothing to postpone their talk.

And Cristina was more terrified in that moment than she had been in a long time.

"So," Owen said, handing her a glass of water, "how do we start this?"

"This isn't my first time being pregnant," Cristina blurted out, groaning internally at how bluntly she had said it.

"And I guess that is where we start this," Owen said slowly, setting down his own glass of water. "When were you pregnant for the first time?"

"I was a new intern," Cristina began. "I was- I don't know how to put this," she admitted, biting her lip and looking away.

"Cristina," Owen said softly, sighing when she refused to look in his direction. He grasped her chin and turned her face towards him, placing his hands on either side of her face and staring into her eyes. "We have survived two cases of PTSD, one shooting, and a hell of lot more if you consider all the things that were thrown at us when we lived at your apartment with Callie and Arizona."

"They did have terrible aim. I almost got hit in the head by a can opener," she said, causing him to chuckle slightly.

"What I'm saying is, we have survived some horrible things. I survived a war, and you survived a bombing and a ferryboat crash. Even if you weren't directly involved in them, Meredith was, and you survived them. If we can survive all of those horrible things, I think we can survive one difficult conversation."

"Fine," Cristina said, sighing deeply. "I was an intern, and I made some stupid decisions. Those decisions also led to me getting my eyebrows shaved off, but that's a story for later. I got pregnant, and I was planning on terminating. I didn't even consider it the first time. The father was Burke, but we didn't know each other at the time, and so I didn't even listen when they mentioned adoption. I scheduled the abortion, and I told Meredith, and I thought that I would go to the appointment and then it would be over."

"Burke didn't know?" Owen asked.

"No. That was his own doing; he had broken up with me, telling me that my being involved with him would ruin his chances at bettering his career. Maybe it was spiteful, but I didn't think he deserved to know."

"He didn't," Owen agreed. "That kills me to say, because I know how he must have felt, but he's the one that walked away."

"He didn't have to feel that way. I-um, I fainted in the middle of his OR during surgery. They paged Addison because they didn't know what else they could do. Well, they forced Meredith to tell them what was wrong, and then they paged Addison." She drew in a deep breath. "I had an ectopic pregnancy. They removed one of my tubes. Burke found out, of course. It's Seattle Grace. No one can keep a secret for long."

Owen breathed in deeply, closing his eyes and looking towards her. "Cristina, how didn't I know this?"

"For months, every time I was around a baby with someone that knew, they looked at me with pity. The only exception was Meredith, and that was because she knew how I felt. I didn't want you to look at me like that."

"I wouldn't have-God, Cristina, it was a medical condition. An ectopic pregnancy happens occasionally; it's never the mother's fault."

"That's what everyone said. But- even if I thought I didn't want kids at the time, the thought that my chances had been reduced- it broke me." She breathed in deeply. "My mother came to visit-why, I don't know- and I had a bit of mental breakdown."

"After that?" Owen asked.

"I started seeing Burke," she replied, preparing herself for his disbelieving facial expression. "The man managed to talk me into a white dress with no eyebrows, Owen. He obviously was a mistake. I'm not questioning that," she said. "So please, don't you start questioning that," she pleaded.

"Fine," Owen said. "What happened? After all of that, what happened?"

"Meredith almost died," Cristina said. "Between the baby and the being left at the altar, my best friend was dead for hours on end. And he asked me to marry him that day." She laughed without amusement. "He got what he wanted, I guess. I almost married him. I almost lost a part of myself that I never could have gotten back."

"You think that's what marriage is? Losing pieces of yourself? You think that's the purpose of marriage?" Owen asked, arching an eyebrow.

"I think that's what marriage to him would have been like. He wanted me to quit my job, be a stay-at-home wife and mother."

"You'd be bored within a week," Owen said with a chuckle. "If you made it that long," he added, shaking his head.

"That's why I married you and not him. Even if he never said it out loud, he wanted me to be different than I was. You-even when I piss you off so much that you want to leave, you've never ask me to give up that piece of myself."

"Is that what I am doing?" Owen asked, his eyes flying towards hers as he took her hands in his own. "Am I making you lose a piece of yourself by asking you to have this baby?"

Cristina didn't even think. "No," Cristina said. "Maybe at first I thought that, but you're not taking away a piece of me. You're not breaking me, Owen." She drew in a deep breath, and smiled a smile she hadn't shown the world in quite some time. "I think that you're the one putting me back together."


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: I know, I know, two chapters in one day. It's a minor miracle, especially if you consider how long it's been since I've updated the stories that were the first that I published. Let's not focus on that…**

 **REVIEW REPLIES**

 **007: Thank you so much! I tried to continue watching after Owen and Amelia began their relationship, but I couldn't do it. I hate how much Shonda has made Owen contradict himself since Cristina left. "I'll never love another woman- wait, except for that one, and we'll start dating immediately after you leave." That's basically how I see Owen's relationship with Amelia these days.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Grey's Anatomy.**

Dr. Cristina Yang had always been the best when it came to medicine. She had a PhD and an MD. She won all the contests and the awards. When it came to medicine, she was logical. She found a reason for every decision she made, and it was always a good reason, a believable reason. When it came to medicine, Cristina Yang was, without a doubt, the best of the best. Whether it was in the hospital or in the world, she was the best.

But her immense knowledge applied only to medicine. In love, in life, she was very often clueless.

She sat across from her husband, still involved in the conversation they had started hours before. There were dried tears on her cheeks; she had cried more than she wished to admit over the past hours. Owen's hand was in hers, his thumb stroked soothing circles on her palm as he spoke about his own past.

They had discussed every aspect of her life before him. She had told him about the wedding, about Mama Burke, about why she had hated the idea of the poufy white dress, the veil, the rings, and the promises that she wasn't sure that she could keep. He had been silent through most of their conversation, simply allowing her to speak. He had shaken his head every now and then at something that had happened between her and Burke in the past- 'He left a key to his apartment in a _coffee cup?_ '- but had otherwise been mostly silent. At the end of the conversation, though, Owen was very much in agreement that she and Burke hadn't been made for each other at all.

"You are a brilliant surgeon, but you're also an amazing wife. Even if we yell and scream at each other, you are an amazing wife. It's- I can't believe he couldn't see that. I'm glad that he didn't see it, because you are the love of my life and I am so thankful that I know you, but I just- I can't believe that he couldn't see that."

"He didn't see me," Cristina said.

"What?" Owen asked, his eyes flashing to hers as he was reminded of the words he had said to her years before. _'See me, Cristina.'_

"He didn't see me. Not as a whole. He saw a woman that could be a brilliant surgeon, and he saw a woman that could be his wife. Nowhere in his mind did he think that I could be both." She smiled at Owen, resting her head on his shoulder. "Thank you for knowing that I could be both."

"Any time," Owen said, pressing his lips to the top of her head. "I mean that, Cristina."

"I know you do," she said, looping her arm through his and leaning into him.

"We still have so much we need to talk about," he sighed, smiling down at her as she groaned. "We have to be halfway stable, Cristina."

"I know," she groaned. "I don't want my kid to end up screwed up." She shook her head. "There is so much that we've been through. You know, bad things always happen to us. It's actually ridiculous. You do realize that no one in the real world is as unlucky as us, right?"

"We have each other," Owen reminded. "God had to figure out somehow to balance out all of the luck He gave us."

Cristina chuckled. "Sometimes, Owen, I'm pretty sure you are not a real person. That was-God, that was cheesy."

"It was true," Owen said, shaking his head with a grin as she playfully rolled her eyes at him. "What else do you want to talk about? It's- well, it's ten. How is it ten?" Owen asked.

"We have been talking since six," Cristina said, groaning as she stood up. "Your son or daughter did not want me to move."

"You okay?" Owen asked, shooting to his feet and placing a hand on the small of her back. "Morning sickness coming back?"

"No," Cristina said, breathing deeply. "Why do we call it morning sickness? That classification is such a lie." She straightened slowly. "Let's go to bed."

"Okay," Owen said, smiling softly as he moved to follow her.

"Oh, don't forget the ultrasound," she called behind her.

Owen smiled as he turned around, grabbing the ultrasound from the coffee table. His son or daughter was so tiny in the image, and shown in only shades of gray, but he knew that that child- the baby growing in his wife's womb, the growing infant that he wouldn't meet for at least seven months-,he knew that that child would forever change his life.

He couldn't wait for those changes.

Apparently, morning sickness wasn't that inaccurate of a classification.

Cristina Yang groaned as she rolled over in bed, her stomach already rebelling. "I love you, kid, but you're killing me here," she murmured, sitting up slowly and running for the bathroom. Owen- whose ability to sleep when his wife was out of bed was subpar at best-sat up, climbing from the bed after her and leaning against the doorjamb of the bathroom door.

"Sweetheart, are you okay?" he asked as she groaned, leaning against the wall. "Do you need anything?"

"I don't think anything will help right now," she said, her eyes closing.

Owen took a seat next to her, bringing her against him and kissing the side of her head. "You want me to call Meredith?"

"No," Cristina said, resting her head against his chest. "I'm good with just you," she said.

He kissed her shoulder and nodded. "This is normal, right?" he asked, concern dripping from his voice.

"Yes," Cristina assured him. "It's completely normal. Now come on," she said, moving to get up. "We have to go to work."

"No," Owen said.

"What?" Cristina asked, arching an eyebrow.

"You're not going to work right now, Cristina; you are miserable." Owen sighed in exasperation.

"I thought we agreed that bossing me around and acting like I'm a housewife is just a bad idea."

"We did. I'm not acting like you're a housewife, but I am acting like you're my wife, because you are. Cristina, you are pregnant."

"I know; that's why we are currently sitting on the bathroom floor."

"You look ready to fall asleep where you stand. You look miserable. If you were a doctor and not my wife, I would send you home if you showed up to work. It's not my decision; go to work. Teddy will get to make the final decision."

"Teddy's going to tell me I look sick and then send me home."

"Yes, she will. And she _doesn't_ know that you are pregnant," Owen said. "Come on. We can-okay, you have morning sickness, Cristina, so we can't do anything that's exactly fun. But we can talk, or go sneak into the gallery at one of Teddy's surgeries."

"Okay, I take it back. You do know me," Cristina said. "Let's talk. Then, if I want to curl up in a ball from misery, we can go see Teddy be badass in surgery."

"Okay," Owen said, helping her up off of the floor. "You good?"

"Yeah," she said.

Owen nodded, bending down to her stomach.

"Somehow I knew that all of our days would begin with this after I told you," Cristina said, smiling despite her words and resting her hands on his shoulders. "Go ahead. Be a dad."

"You're not going to point out that the baby doesn't have ears, and therefore can't hear a word I'm saying?"

"Nope. Go for it," Cristina said, shaking her head at the excitement on his face. Despite this, she smiled.

"Hello in there," Owen said, his eyes twinkling as he spoke to their unborn child. "I can't wait to meet you."

"He can wait at least thirty weeks to meet you, though; don't get any silly ideas," Cristina said.

"Yes, I can wait to meet you until you're grown enough to be in the world." Owen smiled at his wife's protectiveness of their child. He kissed her stomach. "You have the best mommy in the whole world. Remember that when she doesn't let you go to parties, or when she tells you you're making mistakes. She loves you, and so do I." He then rested his cheek against her stomach for several moments before standing up. "Breakfast?" he asked.

"If you want to cook," Cristina said. "I don't want to go out anywhere; other people might judge me if I run out of the room every two minutes if your baby decides to hate pancakes."

"I will happily cook for you, but why is it _my_ baby when it won't let you eat pancakes?" Owen asked, walking into the kitchen to gather the needed cooking supplies.

"For several months of our friendship, relationship, whatever it was, you hated syrup," Cristina reminded him.

"I didn't hate syrup; I simply said that it is not good for you."

"The best things in life aren't good for us," Cristina said.

He pointed at her with a spatula. "When did you become philosophical?"

"It's the hormones," she said, causing him to chuckle. "Can you put blueberries in the pancakes?" When he arched a brow at her, she shrugged. "Cravings."

"Ah," he replied, walking to the refrigerator and removing the container of blueberries from the fruit drawer. "Yes, I can put blueberries in the pancakes."

Thirty minutes later, they were seated at their table, munching happily on pancakes and bacon. Cristina's stomach hadn't decided to rebel as of yet, something that she was very thankful for. She smiled at her husband when she felt his eyes on her, but her smile quickly faded away as she took in the seriousness of his face. "What?" she asked, placing one hand protectively over her stomach. Who would've thought that she would be a mama bear when she got pregnant? Certainly not her.

"I just realized that we still have so much we need to talk about. I want to- I want to fix us, Cristina. We've been broken for a long time, and that's-that's no one's fault. You know, I had PTSD, and my best friend came back, and then a madman held a gun to your head. He held a gun to your head and he shot me. So maybe we should have seen this coming, but we didn't. Maybe we didn't want to. I don't know. I just- I just know that I never want to be on the outside looking in ever again. I don't want to get casually told by my wife that she's pregnant, but getting an abortion. I don't think that I could handle that again." He raised eyes full of pain towards her, and she nodded her head slowly.

"We can talk. We'll talk," she said. "I'll never- you may get a panicked call from the labor and delivery floor next time, but we- I'll never tell you I'm getting an abortion again." She sighed, leaning her head against his shoulder. "I don't know how to start."

"We just- we talk. And maybe we yell; I don't know. If it makes you feel better, the offer to kick my ass is still firmly on the table."

Cristina shook her head, chuckling at her husband's words. "I don't think that'd be good for the baby."

"That's why we're doing this," Owen said. "Cristina, I don't want to raise our kids in a home where they are forced to listen to us scream at each other because we never talked before they were born."

"Fine, we can talk about the shooting," Cristina said.

"And about everything else?" Owen asked.

"And about everything else," Cristina agreed.

She settled herself more comfortably on her barstool, breathing in deeply and then exhaling with closed eyes as she prepared herself for one of the most difficult conversations of her life.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: I started writing this immediately after publishing chapter three, but at the moment I don't know if I'll be able to publish it. If I don't publish it for a while, I'm sorry.**

 **REVIEW REPLIES: Sorry if I don't reply to you; I'm trying to speed through this chapter. I'll reply next chapter.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Grey's Anatomy.**

"Teddy," Cristina said, and Owen's eyes shot towards hers.

"What?" he questioned.

"Teddy," she repeated. "I love her now; she's like family now. But I still want to discuss her."

"We can discuss Teddy," Owen agreed.

"What about Iraq?" Cristina asked.

"If we need to discuss Iraq, we can discuss Iraq. We can discuss anything and everything you think we need to, Cristina."

"I've never been like this," Cristina said.

"Like what?" Owen asked.

"I've never cared this much about a relationship. I almost married Burke, and yet I didn't give a damn what he thought about me." Cristina shook her head. "You've changed me."

"I pulled out your icicle," Owen said with a chuckle.

"You pulled out my icicle," Cristina confirmed, smiling at him.

"Okay," Owen said, rubbing his hands together. "What do you want to know about Teddy?"

"Was she your Meredith, or was she something more?" Cristina asked.

"Was she my Meredith? I don't know if anyone other than you has ever understood me the way that Meredith understands you. But yes, in the war, when we were spending every moment fighting for our lives, when we were doing everything in our power to save the lives of people that were bleeding out in front of us, she was my person. She was the only person who really understood, so she was my person."

"And what about after?" Cristina asked. "Was she your person then?"

"No," Owen said, shaking his head. "You were."

"I was? Owen, we had known each other for less than a year."

"You were the only one that didn't look at me and see a ghost. Beth knew me when I was a trauma surgeon at Maryland; Teddy knew me when I was a trauma surgeon in the middle of Iraq. Beth knew me before, and Teddy knew me after. You knew me before and after, and you never started looking at me like I was broken. You never looked at me and saw a ghost. So yes, Cristina, you are my person. You have been ever since that day."

"How did you fall in love with her?" Cristina asked, bracing herself for the words that were sure to break a little piece of her away.

"Cristina, I- I was never really in love with Teddy. She was- she was my friend. She was something familiar, and I was suffering PTSD. So maybe I thought that I was in love with her for a period of time, but I wasn't. She was- I do love her, Cristina. But I love her like I love Meredith, and Lexie, and Izzie, and Callie, and Arizona. She's family to me. She's- she's not you to me."

"That was not very eloquent for the man who minored in language," Cristina said.

"That may have something to do with the fact that the language I minored in was German, not English."

"That might have something to do with it," Cristina said. "She can be a godmother, you know. If you want to ask her. She'd have to share the responsibilities with Mere, but she could be a godmother. She'd have to have two godfathers, though." When he looked at her, she shrugged. "I like balance."

"Okay, then," Owen said. "You want to talk some more about Teddy?"

"Nope," Cristina said.

"Iraq?"

"Do you want to tell me anything about Iraq?" Cristina countered.

"I once broke my arm." At her confused look, he chuckled. "In Iraq, I was playing a game of football, and one of the other guys hit me wrong. I broke my arm."

"Only you would be able to do that," Cristina said with a chuckle.

"That's what the doctor said, too."

She smiled at him, slowly allowing her smile to slip away. "I- do you want to talk about the shooting?"

"Do _you_ want to talk about the shooting?"

"We almost died. All of us, everyone in the hospital, we almost died," she said, her eyes focusing on a place over his shoulder. "Derek got shot. You know, some of our doctors died. I didn't- I didn't like them, you know, but I didn't want them dead. They didn't deserve to die. They really didn't deserve to die, especially at the hands of a psychopath."

"No, they didn't," Owen agreed, his eyes focused on her changing features as she bit her lip.

"I mean, Adamson did try to end Alex's marriage to Izzie multiple times, but the fact that she took off and then the fact that he started dating Lexie had already made sure that that ship would never sail again."

"I think that would do it, yes," Owen said, amused that his wife was able to bring her wry sense of humor into even the most serious of conversations.

"But everyone knew at that time that the younger Grey was totally in love with Sloan, so Alex was setting himself up for that heartbreak."

"True," Owen said, shaking his head.

"I'm avoiding, I know," she said, causing him to stare at her. "I know, it's shocking that I just admitted that. I'm turning over a new leaf or whatever. That was evidenced by the baby, wasn't it?"

"Yes," he said with a chuckle. "Yes, it was."

"I was so terrified for so long after that day," Cristina said, her eyes finally meeting his. "It was such a normal day, you know? Well, Meredith doesn't usually tell me that she's pregnant on an average day, but other than that, it was a normal day."

"It was a normal day for most of the day, Cristina," Owen reminded her.

"We weren't normal that day," she reminded him.

"We weren't normal a lot back then, Cristina. We were fighting all of the time."

"I know," she said. "I- I can't talk about the shooting right now. I can talk about after."

"After is good," Owen said. "We got married after. I was very happy after," he added, causing her to chuckle.

"We did get married after." She smiled as she pressed her forehead against his arm. "Thank you for not forcing me to wear a poufy white dress."

"That was for my benefit as much as it was for you. I wouldn't have felt like I was marrying _you_ if you were wearing a poufy white dress."

"And then I had PTSD," Cristina said.

"You did," Owen said, the humor slipping from his voice. "Do you want to talk about that?"

"No," she said, closing her eyes. "But we need to."

"Okay," he said.

"I didn't- I'm not the type of person who surrenders. I mean, a man held a gun to my head and I kept operating. But I surrendered to PTSD the first time. I'm sorry I walked away from our marriage."

"Cristina, your heart was broken. Your best friend's husband had just been shot, and your godchild had died in front of me, and we were all- we were all screwed up. There was something wrong with all of us. It was not just you. They don't force you to go to therapy if you're not screwed up on some level." Owen sighed. "What you did- it hurt. I'm not going to lie and say that it didn't. But you were right. You had just had a gun pressed against your skull." He chuckled without humor. "There were probably a thousand better moments that we could have lived that would have made our marriage's start a little less shaky, but I'm not going to pretend that I'm upset with the start that our marriage got."

"I think that I wanted you to come after me," Cristina said, causing Owen to look up. "I wanted you to come after me and make me halfway healed, and you did. You've healed me so many times, Owen. I think I left to see if you would come after me."

"And I did," Owen said, exhaling with a smile.

"And you did," Cristina said, smiling shakily.

"You want to be let in on a secret, Cristina?" he asked.

"What's that?" Cristina asked, arching a brow.

"I'll always come after you," Owen said, his voice full of such sincerity that it brought tears to her eyes. "No matter what. No matter if I nearly wanted to kill you when I left, or if you wanted to kill me when you left. I'll always come after you."

"Good," Cristina said. "Owen?" she asked softly, resting her head against his shoulder.

"Yeah?" he questioned, glancing down at her.

"I'll always come after you, too."

He smiled tiredly, running a hand through her hair.

"Good," he breathed, kissing her hair. "Good."

 **A/N: It's a bit shorter than I try to aim for, but I wrote it while on Tumblr, so I was a bit distracted. I know, I know, shame on me. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed, and please review!**


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